Tour operator focuses on conservation

Car­ol Quash

When man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Mar­i­anne Ho­sein be­gan op­er­at­ing Three Cir­cles En­er­gy tours, her pur­pose was two-fold: keep­ing her clients sat­is­fied as well as en­sur­ing that the peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ties she and her group toured ben­e­fit­ted from hav­ing vis­i­tors.

“All our ex­pe­ri­ences are de­signed to have max­i­mum com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fit. So whether it be in terms of them pro­vid­ing ser­vices like guid­ing, pro­vid­ing food, ac­com­mo­da­tion, se­cu­ri­ty, craft and sto­ry­telling, we get them in­volved,” Ho­sein told Busi­ness Guardian.

And be­cause she have been in­volved in con­ser­va­tion for over 30 years, tak­ing care of plants, an­i­mals and nat­ur­al spaces is al­so a big com­po­nent of her events.

Based in Mara­cas, St Joseph, Three Cir­cles En­er­gy was built on the sub-con­tract­ing ser­vices mod­el and be­gan op­er­at­ing in 2019, just be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic wreaked hav­oc on the world. That forced Ho­sein to test her re­silience in busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity.

Busi­ness even­tu­al­ly picked up in 2023, and since then she has been tak­ing small groups of tourists in­to var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties through­out T&T, ex­pos­ing them to the his­to­ry, cul­ture and tra­di­tions of those spaces.

“We do pub­lic and per­son­al be­spoke tours. On an av­er­age, we try to do two pub­lic tours a month. The pri­vate tours all de­pend on the clients and their needs at the time.”

The com­pa­ny tar­gets pro­fes­sion­als 35 and over, who want to get away but don’t have the time to de­vote to plan­ning their own ex­pe­ri­ences.

Ho­sein, 51, said she hosts small num­bers—sev­en to 10 peo­ple de­pend­ing on the lo­ca­tion—so that each per­son can have a per­son­alised ex­pe­ri­ence.

“The cost will de­pend on if we go for a day or a week­end. Week­ends are all-in­clu­sive pack­ages. You ba­si­cal­ly just pack your clothes and come be­cause we or­gan­ise the food, we or­gan­ise the per­mits, the guides, and the oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties that we do as well.”

And al­though this makes the price point high­er than that of tour op­er­a­tors who fa­cil­i­tate large groups, Ho­sein said a lot of tourists ap­pre­ci­ate the in­di­vid­ual at­ten­tion, and it makes man­age­ment a lot eas­i­er for her and her team.

“For ex­am­ple, when we do tours to vil­lages like Paramin, we ap­pre­ci­ate hav­ing a small­er num­ber of peo­ple to man­age, and it is eas­i­er for the vil­lagers to con­tin­ue their reg­u­lar way of life rather than be­ing in­con­ve­nienced by end­less bus­es along the roads,” she ex­plained.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Three Cir­cles En­er­gy, like a many oth­er tour op­er­a­tors, does not have pub­lic li­a­bil­i­ty in­sur­ance, so the small­er num­bers means less risk.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, our in­sur­ance agen­cies in T&T have been re­sis­tant to giv­ing pub­lic li­a­bil­i­ty in­sur­ance to all tour op­er­a­tors. But that is some­thing that we’re now work­ing on to close that gap, be­cause it is im­por­tant for us to keep the ser­vices as lo­cal as pos­si­ble rather than go­ing ex­ter­nal, be­cause ex­ter­nal means that forex will be spent,” as she said, ex­plain­ing that there are in­sur­ance com­pa­nies in the US and UK will­ing to of­fer in­sur­ance to lo­cal op­er­a­tors.

Three Cir­cles is a mem­ber of the T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, the of­fi­cial body that rep­re­sents the com­mer­cial in­ter­est of pro­duc­ers and sup­pli­ers of tourism prod­ucts and ser­vices.

“And as­so­ci­a­tion too has been ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing in­sur­ance agen­cies lo­cal­ly to ac­tu­al­ly close that gap for small busi­ness­es like mine.”

She said al­though she and the guides she con­tracts are qual­i­fied to han­dle risky sit­u­a­tions, they do not en­cour­age risky be­hav­iours.

“All our clients will re­ceive a sim­pli­fied risk as­sess­ment so that they un­der­stand, yes, they can have fun, but they need to avoid things that can cause harm. We do not en­cour­age jump­ing off of wa­ter­falls, for ex­am­ple,” said Ho­sein, even though she works with some of the most ex­pe­ri­enced guides in T&T, and they plan for un­for­tu­nate oc­cur­rences.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the po­lice in the area is in­formed when they ar­rive and leave.

“There’s a med­ical de­c­la­ra­tion form and a li­a­bil­i­ty dis­claimer agree­ment that each client needs to sign be­fore the ac­tu­al event, so our guides have an idea of who is man­ag­ing what, whether it be high blood pres­sure, di­a­betes, healed in­juries to the limbs or back; so we know what to look for as we go through the event. And in terms of the dis­claimer agree­ment, that is them ac­knowl­edg­ing that they are aware of the risks in­volved and that they do not hold any of our stake­hold­ers li­able, with­in rea­son, of course, be­cause ac­cord­ing to the OS­HA, as the op­er­a­tor we do have a du­ty of care to our clients.”

She said the com­pa­ny has an HSE man­u­al, risk man­age­ment man­u­als and ac­ci­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­to­cols.

And Three Cir­cles En­er­gy is com­mit­ted to waste man­age­ment too. All plas­tics and glass from the events are col­lect­ed and do­nat­ed for re­cy­cling.

Ho­sein said the com­pa­ny was cre­at­ed to help peo­ple to re­con­nect with them­selves and to na­ture—in­ter­act­ing with the land , sea, and sky and con­serv­ing it for gen­er­a­tions to come—and will con­tin­ue along that path.